Category Archives: Global development

Assad regime ‘siphons millions in aid’ by manipulating Syria’s currency

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Government pocketed half of donations in 2020 as central bank forced UN agencies to use lower exchange rate


The Syrian government is siphoning off millions of dollars of foreign aid by forcing UN agencies to use a lower exchange rate, according to new research.

The Central Bank of Syria, which is sanctioned by the UK, US and EU, in effect made $60m (£44m) in 2020 by pocketing $0.51 of every aid dollar sent to Syria, making UN contracts one of the biggest money-making avenues for President Bashar al-Assad and his government, researchers from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the Operations & Policy Center thinktank and the Center for Operational Analysis and Research found.

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Global heating ‘may lead to epidemic of kidney disease’

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Deadly side-effect of heat stress is threat to rising numbers of workers in hot climates, doctors warn

Chronic kidney disease linked to heat stress could become a major health epidemic for millions of workers around the world as global temperatures increase over the coming decades, doctors have warned.

More research into the links between heat and CKDu – chronic kidney disease of uncertain cause – is urgently needed to assess the potential scale of the problem, they have said.

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Too hot to handle: can our bodies withstand global heating?

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Extreme heat can kill or cause long-term health problems – but for many unendurable temperatures are the new normal

The impact of extreme heat on the human body is not unlike what happens when a car overheats. Failure starts in one or two systems, and eventually it takes over the whole engine until the car stops.

That’s according to Mike McGeehin, environmental health epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “When the body can no longer cool itself it immediately impacts the circulatory system. The heart, the kidneys, and the body become more and more heated and eventually our cognitive abilities begin to desert us – and that’s when people begin fainting, eventually going into a coma and dying.”

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‘He cared when no one did’: Filipino human rights lawyer Chito Gascón dies of Covid

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Gascón, who frequently clashed with Rodrigo Duterte over his ‘war on drugs’, has been hailed as a ‘true hero’ of democracy

José Luis Martín C Gascón used a walking stick to carry out his duties as the Philippines’ “courageous” human rights lawyer, a result of living with with diabetes and the wound it left on his right foot.

But in the words of his brother, Miguel Gascón, who confirmed his death on Facebook earlier this month, “of all the battles you fought, we had to lose you to Covid-19”.

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Colombia found responsible for 2000 kidnap and torture of journalist

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Inter-American court of human rights rules Colombia was ‘internationally responsible’ for violation of Jineth Bedoya’s rights

The Colombian state has been found responsible for the kidnap, torture and rape of a prominent journalist who was abducted while reporting on her country’s civil war, in a landmark ruling from the inter-American court of human rights.

Jineth Bedoya, who has been pursuing justice for over 21 years and now campaigns against sexual violence, was recognised by the court on Monday as having suffered “grave verbal, physical and sexual aggressions” for which the state was responsible. Before now, only three of her attackers had faced justice, receiving sentences in Colombian courts in 2019.

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‘I have accepted my fate’: the hidden abuse in Uganda’s LGBT community – in pictures

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In a country where gay sex is against the law, it can be almost impossible for the LGBT community to access services tackling domestic violence – and during the pandemic, lockdowns saw abuse soar

All photos by DeLovie Kwagala

* Names have been changed. Since these interviews took place all the subjects have ceased living with their abusers and are finding ways to heal

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Afghanistan to restart polio vaccination programme with Taliban support

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The WHO and Unicef campaign will restart after three years, and the hardliners say they will assist and allow frontline female staff

Afghanistan will restart nationwide polio vaccinations after more than three years, as the new Taliban government agreed to assist the campaign and to allow women to participate as frontline workers, the UN said on Monday.

The World Health Organization and Unicef said the vaccination drive would begin on 8 November with Taliban support.

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‘I was born a fighter’: the champion boxer changing young lives in Zimbabwe

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Boxing helped prizefighter Arifonso Zvenyika overcome real hardship. Now he teaches the sport he loves to aspiring fighters in a Harare ghetto

Beneath a corrugated iron roof in the crowded Harare suburb of Mbare, a group of boys darts back and forth across a smooth concrete floor, firing a series of rapid punches into the air.

A wiry older man, dressed in low-slung tracksuit bottoms and flip-flops, watches their moves, encouraging them to “Jab! Jab! Jab!”.

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Has Interpol become the long arm of oppressive regimes?

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Once used in the hunt for fugitive criminals, the global police agency’s most-wanted ‘red notice’ list now includes political refugees and dissidents

Flicking through the news one day in early 2015, Alexey Kharis, a California-based businessman and father of two, came across a startling announcement: Russia would request a global call for his arrest through the International Criminal Police Organization, known as Interpol.

“Oh, wow,” Kharis thought, shocked. All the 46-year-old knew about Interpol and its pursuit of the world’s most-wanted criminals was from novels and films. He tried to reassure himself that things would be OK and it was just an intimidatory tactic of the Russian authorities. Surely, he reasoned, the world’s largest police organisation had no reason to launch a hunt for him.

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‘The heaven of film-making’: how a Dalit orphan got to tell her own story

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A gift of a camera inspired Belmaya Nepali to rise above poverty and abuse to make documentaries

• I Am Belmaya review

Belmaya Nepali’s life changed for ever when, at 14, she was given a camera.

The British film-maker Sue Carpenter had come to Pokhara, a tourist city in central Nepal, to run a photography project with disadvantaged girls living in an institution. One of those girls was Belmaya.

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UN quizzed over role in prison-like island camp for Rohingya refugees

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Rights groups raise concerns over deal to provide services on Bhasan Char, as Bangladesh plans to increase camp’s population by 80,000

The UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR) is facing questions over whether it is helping to detain Rohingya refugees in prison-like conditions by providing services on a controversial island camp.

Over the past year, Bangladesh has relocated almost 20,000 refugees to Bhasan Char, an island formed of silt deposits in the Bay of Bengal thought to be vulnerable to cyclones, which the refugees are unable to leave.

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‘He lives freely, I live in fear’: the plight of India’s abandoned wives

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Activists highlight the poverty, stigma and abuse faced by women deserted by spouses living abroad

Kamala Reddy*, 33, a software engineer from Andhra Pradesh, married Vijay Kumar* in a traditional Hindu wedding in 2012. Kumar, who was working in the UK, was chosen by Reddy’s family. “But he didn’t take me to the UK after our marriage. He made excuses such as problems with the visa and so on,” says Reddy.

In 2016, Reddy became pregnant. Under pressure from the family, Kumar brought her to England. On arrival, she was shocked to discover Kumar’s secret. He had a British partner, two children and a stepchild. Neither Kumar’s nor Reddy’s families knew about the other family. Kumar threatened to leave Reddy if she told anyone.

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Italy using anti-mafia laws to scapegoat migrant boat drivers, report finds

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A decades-long policy of criminalising asylum seekers is filling prisons with innocent men, according to analysis by rights groups

Italian police have arrested more than 2,500 migrants for smuggling or aiding illegal immigration since 2013, often using anti-mafia laws to bring charges, according to the first comprehensive analysis of official data on the criminalisation of refugees and asylum seekers in Italy.

The report by three migrant rights groups has collected police data and analysed more than 1,000 criminal cases brought by prosecutors against refugees accused of driving vessels carrying asylum seekers across the Mediterranean.

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Kenya rejects UN court judgment giving Somalia control of resource-rich waters

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ICJ ruling aggravates fractious relations between two countries and threatens to destabilise restive region

Kenya’s president, Uhuru Kenyatta, has rejected a decision by the UN’s highest court to grant Somalia control of disputed waters in the Indian Ocean, saying it would “strain relations” between the neighbouring countries.

The president accused the international court of justice of imposing its authority on a dispute “it had neither jurisdiction nor competence” to oversee after it delineated a new boundary that gives Somalia territorial rights over a large portion of the ocean, which is thought to be rich in oil and gas reserves. According to the new maritime border, Somalia has gained several offshore oil exploration blocks previously claimed by Kenya.

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Giulio Regeni: trial of Egyptian security agents charged over death begins in Rome

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The accused, all members of the National Security Agency, are being tried in absentia after the researcher’s kidnap and killing in Cairo

A court in Rome has begun the trial of four Egyptian security service officers accused of killing an Italian researcher, Giulio Regeni, five and a half years after his mutilated body was found in a ditch by a road in Cairo.

Italian prosecutors accuse Gen Tariq Saber, Col Aser Ibrahim, Capt Hesham Helmi, and Maj Magdi Abd al-Sharif of the “aggravated kidnapping” of Regeni, while Sharif is also charged with “conspiracy to commit aggravated murder”. Kidnap carries a potential sentence of up to eight years in Italy, while Sharif could receive a life sentence.

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UN development goal of zero hunger ‘tragically distant’, global index shows

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Campaigners fear climate breakdown, Covid and violent conflict are threatening any progress made in food security in recent years

Global targets to eradicate hunger by 2030 will be missed as a “toxic cocktail” of the climate crisis, conflict and the Covid-19 pandemic reverses progress, new projections have revealed.

The fight to end hunger is “dangerously off track” and the UN sustainable development goal of zero hunger “tragically distant”, according to the 2021 Global Hunger Index (GHI), published on Thursday. Forty-seven countries will fail to achieve even low levels of hunger (ie countries that have adequate food and low numbers of child deaths) by 2030 and millions of people will experience severe hunger in the coming years.

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Afghan refugees accuse Turkey of violent illegal pushbacks

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Migrants, many fleeing the Taliban regime, claim they are being beaten, harassed and turned back by Turkish border forces

As the sun sets over a dusty ravine on the outskirts of Van city in eastern Turkey, Muhammdullah Sangeen and dozens of other Afghans are preparing for another night sleeping rough.

The 22-year-old, who has a bruised left eye and fresh cuts all over his arms, arrived from Iran a few days earlier with the help of smugglers. “I am not OK,” said Sangeen, his legs trembling. “I’m not feeling human.”

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Netflix and Unesco search for African film-makers to ‘reimagine’ folktales

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Competition opens to find six young creators in sub-Saharan Africa who will be funded to produce movies for 2022

For Nelson Mandela they were “morsels rich with the gritty essence of Africa but in many instances universal in their portrayal of humanity, beasts and the mystical.”

Passed down through the generations, whispered at bedtimes and raucously retold by elders, folktales have long been a mainstay of African cultural heritage.

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Killing of two boys for alleged shoplifting shocks Colombia

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Pair were taken away by armed men on motorbikes and later found shot dead on edge of town

The murder of two boys for allegedly shoplifting in Colombia has evoked memories of some of the country’s darkest days of armed conflict.

The pair, who were 12 and 18, were allegedly trying to rob a clothing store in Tibú, a small town near the Venezuelan border, last Friday when they were apprehended by bystanders who taped their hands together, according to witnesses quoted by local media.

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‘Who wouldn’t want out?’: migrants deported to Haiti face challenge of survival

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Many returned to a country they had not seen for years, and many are already plotting another escape as gang violence has left Haiti on the brink of civil war

When Reynold Joseph was deported from the US back to Haiti after five years in South America, he was unprepared for just how bad things had become in his homeland.

Outside a ramshackle guesthouse near downtown Port-au-Prince, where he and a dozen other deportees are staying, some goats were grazing on burning piles of rubbish, while drivers honked and cursed in a queue for petrol that snaked round the block. Each night, Joseph’s three-year-old son stirs in the sweltering heat, and bursts of gunfire ring out in the distance.

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